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Autism Epidemic, First Do No Harm, Conflicts and Collusion, and the Precautionary Principle
Philip Rudnick 6 July 2010
I. The Autism Epidemic
Autism was completely unknown in the United States before 1943. The incidence of autism
in the 1960’s was 1/10,000.
Treffet, Darold
Epidemiology of infantile autism
Archives of general psychiatry1970, (5) 431-38
An autism surge began in the period 1980-1988.
McDonald ME, Paul JF.
Environ Sci Technol. 2010 Mar 15;44(6):2112-8.
National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, MD-B343-06, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27711.
Twenty-two years later (2010) there are 730,000 youths diagnosed with autism.
Time Magazine, March 8, 2010, p.44.
From another source:
Based on statistics provided by the Autism Society of America, it is estimated that approximately 1 million youth in this country have autism, which does not include Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), Asperger’s and other spectrum disorders. A new case of autism is diagnosed nearly every 20 minutes or approximately 24,000 new cases per year.
The current autism incidence is 1/91, a 110-fold increase since the 1/10,000 figure of the 1960’s.
Based on statistics from the U.S. Department of Education and other governmental agencies, autism is growing at a rate of 10-17 percent per year. At this rate, the Autism Society estimates that the prevalence of autism could reach 4 million Americans in the next decade.
The autism epidemic is not an impossible 110-fold “genetic-increase” epidemic,
nor a 110-fold “better-or-shifting-diagnosis increase” epidemic.
“Recent increases in chronic diseases like diabetes, childhood asthma, obesity or autism cannot be due to major shifts in the human gene pool as those changes take much more time to occur. They must be due to changes in the environment, including diet and physical activity, which may produce disease in genetically predisposed persons.”
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.,Evidence to US House of Representatives Committee May 2006
Thomas Insel’s admission about autism at MIT, 2 Dec 2009
"I don't know of any data quite like this over a 20 year period which shows this striking increase." Insel said we don't know what's driving this. We know it's not because of people who were labeled something else. He said it's not diagnostic substitution.
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II. First Do No Harm - Ignoring the Evidence of Harm of Thimerosal in Vaccines
In 1929, K.C. Smithburn, a Eli-Lilly-sponsored physician, intravenously injected thimerosal
into 22 patients terminally ill with Meningococcal Meningitis. No rashes or site reactions were observed. All the patients died shortly afterwards. In January 1931, the American Journal of Hygiene published a paper submitted by H.M. Powell and W.A. Jamieson citing the Smithburn study.
Powell HM, Jamieson WA. Merthiolate as a Germicide. Am J Hyg 1931;13:296-310.
They claimed that this study showed that injected thimerosal was safe. This study was the basis of the FDA’s approval of thimerosal in vaccines. The FDA today still refers to the 1931 Powell and Jameison study on its Web site as indication of the “safety and effectiveness” of thimerosal as a preservative.
“7 of 22 subjects were observed for only one day, the specific clinical assessments were not described, and no laboratory studies were reported.”
From 1931 until 1991, thimerosal was legally added to all pediatric vaccines as a preservative.
These vaccines continued to be used until their stocks were exhausted. Thimerosal continues
to be added to injectable flu vaccines recommended by the CDC and AAP for administration to
children and pregnant women on a routine yearly basis.
1. All forms of mercury are extremely neurotoxic, particularly organomercuric compounds,
and particularly when injected.
2. As with all toxic compounds, the toxicity of mercury is inversely related to body weight,
and is therefore particularly acute for fetuses, infants and children.
3. The toxicity of mercury is also particularly acute for fetuses, infants and children
as they do not yet have fully developed nervous systems.
(172 references)
4. NO preservative, including thimerosal, is necessary in single-dose vials.
The principle of “First Do No Harm” dictates that if two necessary medical courses of action of comparable efficacy exist, you must choose the one that is less harmful or less potentially harmful. For flu vaccines administered to children and pregnant women, one would think that this would simply mandate the use of single-dose, thimerosal-free vials exclusively for this population. The Vaccine Establishment, however, has rejected this proposal on the non-medical grounds of being too inconvenient and too expensive, and on the medical grounds that they know with absolute certainty that thimerosal in vaccines administered to all children and all pregnant women/fetuses cannot possibly cause any harm.
“Is it safe for children to receive an influenza vaccine that contains thimerosal? Yes… Is it safe for pregnant women to receive an influenza vaccine that contains thimerosal? Yes…”
Their proof - conflicted and compromised studies, such as the CDC-funded Thorsen/SSI, Simpson/CDC, Danish vaccine studies:
and the CDC-funded Italian vaccine study:
Thimerosal is good for you - Garbage In - Garbage Out
At the same time, the Vaccine Establishment denigrates and dismisses, without exception,
the voluminous evidence of harm from injected mercury.
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III. Conflicts of Interest and Collusion of the Vaccine Establishment
Vaccine Establishment Conflicts of Interest - Some Examples:
CDC places conflicted scientists on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)
Vaccine Recommendations byConflictedCDCCommitteeMembers:
HHS-Gardasil
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Vaccine Establishment Collusion - Some Examples:
Simpsonwood Conference and the Problem of a Thimerosal-Autism Link
By 1999, the CDC knew from its own evidence that there was a thimerosal link to autism. That's when CDC researcher Tom Verstraeten found it. Here's how he reported it in a Dec. 17, 1999, email to his colleagues, Robert Davis and Frank Destefano. The subject line was, "It just won't go away..."
The CDC then convened officials of the CDC, FDA, AAP, IOM, BigPharma, and BigPharm-affiliated academics to attend a secret (until FOIA-exposed) 7 June 2000 CDC Simpsonwood Conference. They agree to hide from the public the incriminating findings of the CDC Vaccine Safety Datalink and the proceedings of the conference (Robert Chen, CDC: “embargoed information”. Roger Bernier, CDC: “We have been able to manage to keep it out of, let's say, less responsible hands”) They also agree “further work” be done on the database until no thimerosal-autism link is found.
Those aware of this collusion include the then-CDC-head Gerberding, now President of Merck Vaccines, and the then-CBER-head Jesse Goodman, now FDA “Chief Scientist”.
CDC Simpsonwood Conference Proceedings obtained through the FOIA:
After the conference, the CDC withheld Dr. Verstraeten's findings, although they had been slated for immediate publication. The CDC also told other scientists that Verstraeten's original data had been 'lost' and could not be replicated. To thwart the Freedom of Information Act,
the CDC handed its database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers.
Letter of Congressman Dave Weldon, M.D., to Gerberding
In 2003, a private contractor would testify before congress that, in the interest of “patient confidentiality”, he was ordered by the CDC to destroy the original data sets used in the 1999 version of the study that found a thimerosal-autism link. This Vaccine Safety Datalink is eventually moved to an offshore private company and can no longer be accessed
by an FOIA request.
IOM Immunization Safety Review Committee
“In 2001 the Institute of Medicine is commissioned by the CDC to undertake a comprehensive review of all research into the thimerosal/autism connection. At their first meeting, Dr [Kathleen] Stratton, head of the commission, when discussing what the process and product of the working group would be states that, “We said this before you got here, and I think we said this yesterday, the point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is to pull the vaccine, change the schedule. We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy. We wouldn’t say compensate, we wouldn’t say pull the vaccine, we wouldn’t say stop the program”. When the transcript of the meeting is made public through an FOIA request, many interpret this to mean that no matter what they find, they will not publicly say that there is any link between the thimerosal and autism. Dr. Harvey Fineberg, head of the IOM, states that this is an incorrect interpretation of the comments, but will not offer any alternate interpretation of what else they could mean.”
“The CDC "wants us to declare, well, that these things are pretty safe," Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired the IOM Immunization Safety Review Committee, told her fellow researchers when they first met in January 2001. "We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect" of thimerosal exposure. According to transcripts of the meeting, the committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton, predicted that the IOM would conclude that the evidence was "inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation" between thimerosal and autism. That, she added, was the result "Walt wants" - a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the National Immunization Program for the CDC.”
In May 2004, the IOM Immunization Safety Review Committee recommends that no further research into the possibility of a thimerosal-autism link be supported, and it then disbands.
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IV. The Precautionary Principle and the Childhood Immunization Schedule
A. Current CDC Childhood Immunization Schedule
In the 1930’s, the average child received 3 vaccines
By 2009, the CDC Childhood Immunization Schedule has grown to 37 antigens by the age of 18 months, and 49 by the age of 4 years, starting with an inoculation on the day of birth against Hepatitis B, a sexually-transmitted disease (because teen-agers are too hard to reach, and infants are a captive audience - Sam Katz, conflicted CDC Advisory Committee Chairman, 1991)
Virtually every vaccine on this schedule was approved and recommended for inclusion by the members of a heavily-conflicted CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
A partial list of the untested individual and combined risks from this schedule:
The constantly growing number of childhood vaccine doses, now 49, by the age of four, including 13 antigens at one time at 15 months.
The neurotoxic aluminum adjuvant in a steadily increasing number of vaccines (now 17) and in increasing amounts
By 1983, children were already receiving 5 doses of injected aluminum by 2 years. By 2009, the number has reached 18 doses by 18 months.
The FDA limits IV solutions to 25 mcg (or .025 mg) because aluminum was causing neurological delays in premature babies and dementia in kidney dialysis patients. The toxic dose of aluminum for infants is 10 - 20 mcg. The Hepatitis B Vaccine given to newborns contains 250 mcg. Also, depending on the brand of vaccines given, at a typical 2-month-old checkup a child receives anywhere from 295mcg - 1225mcg, and these vaccines are repeated at 4 and 6 months.
Vaccine Book by Robert Sears, M.D.
Other neurotoxic pediatric vaccine additives, such as formaldehyde and glutamate
Aluminum, formaldehyde,glutamic acid-monosodium salt are all classified as neurotoxins:
Starting in 1990, a permanent increase in the potency of the MMR vaccine
Starting in 1994, a second dose of the MMR vaccine
Viral contaminants, such as PCV-1 and PCV-2 in the RotaTeq vaccine
The ongoing exposure of children and fetuses to thimerosal through the CDC-AAP-recommendation of annual thimerosal-preserved flu shots for children and pregnant women
The untested combined impact of all these risks
B. “Benefit vs. Risk Assessment” of the Childhood Immunization Schedule
The claim by the Vaccine Establishment that its "benefit-vs-risk assessment" of the Childhood Immunization Schedule is overwhelmingly favorable and therefore fully justifies its unquestioning and enthusiastic use is inherently baseless. A truly legitimate benefit-vs-risk assessment of any protocol requires one to first have a reasonably full knowledge of the nature and magnitude of all of its risk(s), including its combined risks. Even if each vaccine, separately, in the Childhood Immunization Schedule were to be accorded a favorable benefit-vs-risk assessment, there is no legitimate way to extrapolate from this that the same must hold true for an entire inoculation protocol. THE ENTIRE CHILDHOOD IMMUNIZATION SCHEDULE HAS NEVER BEEN TESTED FOR SAFETY, so the Vaccine Establishment is ignorant of the impact of the combined risks of this complex protocol. The reassuring "benefit-vs-risk assessment" of this vaccination protocol trumpeted by the Vaccine Establishment to the public is a medical fraud.
With the development of growing parental alarm and opposition, the Vaccine Establishment,
in another propaganda ploy - “for the greater good” - now rationalize the medical necessity of court and legislative mandates to enforce their practice of medicine on U.S. children, thereby trashing U.S. parents’ freedom of choice over the health of their children.
In dealing with dissenters, the Vaccination Establishment and its supporters label vaccination safety critics, distraught parents, and dissident scientists and physicians,all of whom urge greater caution, as anti-vaccination, anti-child-health, ignoramuses and quacks (and similar epithets).
C. Precautionary Principle and Testing the Safety of the Childhood Immunization Schedule
The Precautionary Principle dictates that, except in an emergency situation or when no other course of action is possible, any proposed medical course of action of potential harm must first be tested for safety. Complying with this principle is imperative when the subjects involved are infants and children and when the nature of the risk includes the possibility of their permanent neurological damage. The entire Childhood Immunization Schedule has never been tested for safety using as controls never-inoculated children. CDC officials, Insel’s stacked IACC Committee and the NVAC
Committee have over the years stonewalled such a proposal - whether a retrospective one, with absolutely no “unacceptable health risk”, or a prospective one, for which control groups already exist.
The outcome of such a study is potentially so catastrophic to the Vaccine Establishment’s repeated assurances that, under all conditions, “there is absolutely no vaccination-autism link”
that they have done everything in their power to keep such a study from being carried out.
So far, they have fully succeeded. Instead, they have proceeded headlong in the exercise of their power and vaccination zeal to fully implement the Childhood Immunization Schedule, trashing the application of the Precautionary Principle for the testing of its safety. FOR OVER THREE DECADES, THEY HAVE HAD IT COMPLETELY THEIR WAY.
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Like the rest of the medical profession, the Vaccine Establishment, too, has an ethical and professional responsibility and obligation to uphold “First Do No Harm” and the Precautionary Principle. Had they upheld these principles,the Vaccine Establishment could have conducted
the efficacious vaccination of children in as responsible a manner as possible.
The Vaccine Establishment - conflicted and colluding trashers of “First Do No Harm” and
the Precautionary Principle. Their legacy - the unprecedented Autism Epidemic.